Overcoming Obstacles on the Education Staircase: Transforming Education Beyond Adequacy to the Great Equalizer

• In Event: Education Policy's Role in Social Equality

Abstract

The Price of Opportunity Project engages communities and legal and school finance experts to gain insight into policies and resources needed to strengthen public education. This paper focuses on the obstacles to achieving either an educational system that is adequate or an equity-driven higher standard that we call the Great Equalizer. We employ the metaphor of a staircase to illustrate the “levels” individual states must reach. We combine case study and participatory action methodologies to analyze data, using a Critical Policy Analysis approach. Our results identify obstacles to creating a Great Equalizer system that are: 1) legal and political; and 2) normative and ideological. Finally, we offer strategies and tools community advocates can use to overcome these obstacles.

Authors

• Jonathon E. Sawyer, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author

• Regina R. Umpstead, University of Louisville
  Presenting Author

• Frank M. Adamson, California State University - Sacramento
  Presenting Author

• Tatianna J. Grant, State of California
  Presenting Author

• Kathryn E. Wiley, Howard University
  Presenting Author

• Kevin G. Welner, University of Colorado - Boulder
  Presenting Author